Every Day We Begin Again

Every day we begin again.

Every night as you drift to sleep thinking of tomorrow, what is it you’re looking at? She stands there, between the far end of the horizon and the place where your sight gives way to blurry globs of colour. She does not speak to you. The only sound you hear is the wind as it blows away her scent, co-mingled with the wet-earth smell post-rain, and the taste of iron lies on your tongue.

Every time I turn to her, she is gone.

She comes wearing new dresses each day, all wet-edged with grass. My hands are numb with cold and I cannot see if she asks something of me.

I keep walking.

Every time I turn to her, she is gone.

The Perils of Feminist Angst and Miscommunication

A little girl gets caught in the crush of women waiting to receive gifts sponsored by USAID in honour of International Women’s Day in Kandahar City. With resources in short supply, women jostle each other to make sure they get their share.

Photo by Paula Lerner

The Globe and Mail has recently published a series of interviews, titled “Behind the Veil”. This series endeavors to bring to public attention the everyday plight of the Afghan woman, and more generally, the oppressed woman, wherever she is. Unfortunately, despite procuring several opportunities to speak privately to these women, The Globe and Mail has failed to produce what could have been among the most powerful pieces of feminist reporting in our era.

A major fail-factor with regard to these interviews was The Globe’s shitty methodology. The interviews were conducted by a hired local woman/girl (I believe there were two because there are two different voices). The hired Globe proxy was “trained” to use a digital camera and to ask the interviewees a bunch of questions on a list that The Globe provided. The list consisted of basic identification questions (name, place of birth and residence, marital status etc) to more “serious” ones such as “what is the difference between men’s and women’s lives in Afghanistan?” “What do you think of the political situation in Afghanistan?” and my personal favourite, “Have you ever driven a car?”. I’m sure that between the daily beatings and degradation that woman face everyday, they’re all just crushed by the fact that they aren’t allowed to drive cars. Absolutely crushed. The denial of choice in marriage, the denial of birth control, the denial of all those other more important things is secondary, of course.

WHAT was The Globe thinking when they put in that question? Or were they thinking at all?

The entire series seems to be centered on evoking a response from the independent, working woman, instead of trying to represent the life of an Afghan woman without biases. The effect of this series would have been exponentially stronger had The Globe tried to promote a sense of solidarity between the Afghan woman and the American woman (or Canadian, or European, etc) instead of projecting Afghan culture as different from ours and thus harrowing. The Perils of Feminist Angst are exactly this – projecting our cultural values onto another person and judging their life by that standard – illustrated beautifully in the question “Have you ever driven a car?”

The penchant people have for finding differences between their culture and one the have judged to be “inferior” is remarkable, and dangerously misleading. In approaching the study of a culture with biases, a researcher or reporter or communicator loses the ability to present an objective 360-degree view of the dynamics at work in that culture. This is what has happened and what keeps happening in articles or news pieces regarding the Afghan culture or others similarly deemed inferior. In asking women if they have ever driven a car, The Globe is implying that driving a car is a priority. But is it? Wouldn’t these women rather have safe households? Wouldn’t they rather be allowed to grow up before they are required to consummate marriages with men sometimes 10 times their age? Why did the Globe not ask them why they raised their sons to be abusive, domineering men? Why did the Globe not ask Mothers in Law why they treat their Daughters in Law with such hatred when they themselves have been in that position?

The flaw lies again with The Globes interviewing “techniques” and the fact that a professional reporter did not conduct these interviews. Instead of an empathetic connection forming between the interviewer and interviewee, a mutual trust, there is a distance and a sense of duty. The interviewees communicate suspicion through even their burka-clad faces as the interviewer reads from her list of questions robotically, not acknowledging and responding to their answers but just drumming out her own questions. An opportunity for female connection and understanding has been lost, and while facing dismissal from their male counterparts, the Afghan women face it from their kind too.

I will end this post with a poem by the renowned Adrienne Rich, who has been and still is among the most influential feminist activists to ever have lived.

Women

My three sisters are sitting
on rocks of black obsidian.
For the first time, in this light, I can see who they are.

My first sister is sewing her costume for the procession.
She is going as the Transparent lady
and all her nerves will be visible.

My second sister is also sewing,
at the seam over her heart which has never healed entirely,
At last, she hopes, this tightness in her chest will ease.

My third sister is gazing
at a dark-red crust spreading westward far out on the sea.
Her stockings are torn but she is beautiful.

Ways to help the Afghan women.

The morning wakes to her voice, like sweet scented wind whistled through the lips of a tropical canopy. Birds gather at her window (barred), wings flapping like a million men running on dry underbrush. The rain inside drips like the pounding of silent piano keys (drumming fingers on wood). Gunshots suddenly (lightening) puncture through the canopy somewhere (men run frantically now).

She has collected her songs in a jar, to sing some other day.

On Writing

Writing is like going to war. There are a lot of inflated egos involved. Most times the issue has been blown out of proportion. Other times there is no issue, just a need for blood, carnage and destruction. Except every innocent civilian killed, imprisoned, kidnapped, raped, mutilated – those tortured and those that torture – are all visions of the narcissistic soul that sits, silently, holding a pen.

Letters to No One

Dearest,

Our last chat has left me with a kind of tasteless melancholy… melancholy that is targeted at nothing and triggered by everything – the coffee pot, the building next-door, the frayed cloth slipper on the pantry floor. I dare not venture into rooms that hold the real memories. You left some of your clothes on the bed in your room, and I found a pair of socks while I was doing the laundry. Yesterday Max brought me a belt of yours in his mouth. And locked somewhere in these rooms is the smell of you. I dont open any doors for fear of losing you again, wholly.

I dont want to go over what we said. We were both hurt, angry, scared. Its funny how these emotions keep coming back to us from childhood. Adulthood just brings exhaustion. I watch our children play in the mornings and wonder what I am to do now. They ask me why you have left.

I am sorry for what I have done to you, and to our children. But I do not regret it. Whether you understand or not my motivation for doing so, I dont know; I am thankful nonetheless that you have accepted this arrangement.

Love,

X

The scarf hanging behind the door flickers in my peripheral vision. It isn’t cold out. The scarf has been hanging there from several winters ago, faded and dusty now, partially moth-eaten.

No face emerges from behind the door. The door does not budge. Yet it seems as though the scarf has become an effervescent vapour that moves to drafts of air blowing through the door’s woody fingerprints, but the air is stagnant

The baby-tongue of my lantern’s flame stands, twitching only slightly. My shadow on the wall is a malformed apparition and the moon cannot be seen from  my window. The scarf still flickers in my peripheral vision and I expect you to walk through that door.

“Leave living to those who know how to do it.”

Cleaning out your home after you passed, I finally understood.

More on my readings of Adrienne Rich

I have been devouring Adrienne Rich’s works by the book-full for the past month – since uni started and I could freely borrow what I wanted from the beautiful, calming, liberatingly massive collection of books they’ve got. And this isnt even the tip of the ice-berg yet.

I have noted a bunch of authors, women, that Adrienne has referred or referenced to in her works. I intend on reading their complete works as well. Once I’m done with Adrienne of course. (I prefer saying Adrienne to Rich because her work is simply so personal, so much her own that to distance her from it by using simply her last name would be…meh)

At the moment I’ve checked out two of her books, Of Woman Born – Motherhood as Experience and Institution, and On Lies, Secrets, and Silence. In contemplating her work, any of her work be it poetry or prose, I have found a much needed affirmation, a refreshingly female perspective on what it means to be female. I’m sure all of this sounds like “feminist tripe” but having struggled with personal identity for as long as I can remember, finding a voice that makes so much sense provides immeasurable relief and strength.

I cant claim to understand what pains Adrienne Rich has been through, how much she has suffered to come to this point of realization..or several realizations..to then voice them, live by them. I cannot even begin to imagine. But what amazes me is her ability to identify all the major issues surrounding the collective female experience (not just her own) within a (still) patriarchal society. What amazes me more is her ability to understand and come to terms with these issues, to then present them in a way that may be understood by others. What it comes down to, really, is the strength to write the complete, unadulterated, unfiltered, stark truth. And to then learn to deal with it.

I hope to meet her some day, attend a reading or some other event and tell her how her words have acted as glue between fragments of myself that I had lost, was losing or would have lost. I wonder how lost still I would be had I never chanced upon The Fact of a Doorframe at my college library, and found in it a voice – a female voice – of strength, purpose, sincerity and disillusionment. I am tempted to say I wish I had found this voice sooner, but I might not have been ready then. I look at my sleeping sister and despite the tumult of emotions I have felt since her birth two years ago, I want to be this voice for her – this voice that refuses self-destruction, powerlessness and objectification. I want to be this voice. I want to be this person.

The Works of Adrienne Rich

I stare in awe at her books, not daring to read them or even to touch them. Sitting in front of the arrangement, I look briefly at the floor (in respect and shame) and wonder what gives me the right to say I can understand and relate. What gives me the right to even read her words?

I sit in front of the books expecting judgment. Like a virtuous lad ready to be knighted or a convict beheaded. I sit in the presence of her words that seem to live outside of themselves…and finally, finally gather enough courage to reach out and pick one.

I have it on my bed now – the book itself a force. And I wonder if ever she felt as weak and displaced as this, if ever she scanned a room for places to hide; or if the strength came to her from infancy, if there was no other way to live than to stride forth and announce her presence.

Chapters – 2

The screen comes in and out of focus. There are patterns reflected on it from today’s pale sunlight. It will rain today, heavily.

She begins her day like any other – with the brown slop-substitute for food. Out the door now, in the car, she goes over what she must accomplish during the day. There are several emails to reply to, mostly from Rob, her editor. She writes slogans for a living; things like Coca cola’s “Open Happiness”. Though not for a multinational company, and not for half as much money as the person who wrote that (slop).

Rob emailed her about a meeting with a big client of their’s – some new office supply company. She wonders if her life could get any more mundane than it is now and concludes that it is possible. Upon further inspection (though), she cant see how.

The clock’s cubic orange numbering tells her she’s on time, punctual, as professionals are supposed to be. She has been debating turning on the radio like she usually does. There is something peaceful about this town in winter.